Bad Habits
by SetsunaNoroi
Summary: The spirit of the Ring should be gone. He is gone. But somehow, Ryou still feels something there. He tries so hard to resist giving in to the odd urges he's been feeling lately, but the bad things he wants to do get more tempting by the second. Rated for implied slight criminal activity.


I'm not even sure where this idea came from. It just sprang forward last night and I wrote it. Since it's so short, I pretty much only had one of my betas look it over, and it seemed fine, so I posted it.

Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't belong to me. I wish it did. Because then I would have kept it as dark as the oringal manga and Season 0 was. As it is, all I have are my fics.

Bad Habits

Ryou is sure if he were the type to drink, it would be too much. Somehow, the thought comes into his head as he stares at the content on the shelf on the small gas station he's in. He forgot to pack a lunch, waking up late and having to scramble to get to school. Staying up too late making more figures. He'll have to tell his father that he instead spent too much time studying the night before, just in case he bothers to read the note from his teacher saying he fell asleep in class.

That is, if his father bothers coming home.

Which he won't.

So why did Ryou bother to think up the fib?

He sighs and goes back to staring at the gas station aisle, thinking he should pick out some food and go. He's hungry, and it will take forever to get home, and even longer to cook. Just a snack of some kind would help.

Instead he's looking at this bottle that shouldn't be there, not in place. It's just sitting there amongst cookies, sugary sweets, and chips. Perhaps someone just left it there, put it down after deciding not to buy it.  
His fingers itch, an odd feeling filling his head. Something telling him to take it. He doesn't know why.

No, that's a lie.

He needs to stop doing that, lying to himself. Especially in his own head when he already knows the truth.

"You're a jerk, leaving me all your bad habits, even after you die," he breathes, though no one is listening. The person he's talking to can't anymore. Ryou doesn't know what happened to him.

He kinda wishes he did.

The teen bit his own lip harshly. Another damn lie. He's perfectly happy not knowing. He doesn't care. He just feels like he should care, because he's nice and kind. The kind of person who can smile and forgive no matter what.

But not that person. He's the dark stain on his record. He's the reason why he's standing here, thinking about taking what doesn't belong to him. He's the reason why Ryou sees in his mind at times a thickly cut wooden table, laden with food, meat, and the only drink there is alcohol. Every time.

He finds himself wondering if that's the only kind of drink they had back then. They certainly didn't have soft drinks. He told himself he'd ask his father.

If he bothers to show up.

Ryou sighs. That person is also the reason why he feels... sadly, a little lonely. He doesn't want him back, far from it. But when he was around, Ryou was never alone.

Now he's always alone. He doesn't have anyone to hear him when he hisses out soft insults. He thinks about how strange it would be to drink alcohol all the time, and how he really shouldn't try it even once, because he'd probably develop a bad habit and do it too much. He lets his hand itch while he thinks about how much he NEEDS to let his compulsion have its way and steal this stupid bottle, which he swears is gloating at him.

The boy groans, turns away, and leaves. He's hungry, but he ignores it. He'll wait until he gets home and pretend he hasn't suddenly gotten irresponsible in order to fix the diorama of Egypt that no longer matters to anyone but him. He'll pretend he hasn't been blowing off work he should do, and suddenly start getting irresponsible, not to mention acting rude to his teachers. He'll pretend he doesn't want to steal, just because he can. He'll pretend he hasn't suddenly minded his father for leaving him alone for months at a time, even though family is the only thing that matters, and what would he do if the man were to suddenly just die and he could never see him again?

He shakes his head and walks to the train station. He thinks about his father dying a lot. Particularly about him falling into a large pot of melting gold.

This time he doesn't lie and think he doesn't understand where that memory comes from. It would be too disrespectful. Not that he cares about disrespecting the person who left him, but it would be rude to the dead family he tried to avenge.

And as many bad habits he's gotten lately, as much as he's gotten rude with authority, lies, and thinks about all the bad things he could do and get away with, as much as he suddenly hates poor little Yugi, who for some reason has suddenly started acting much more authoritative and bossy and protective of other people, he still has enough decency in him to feel bad for good people who didn't deserve to die.

He suddenly curses, the filthy words coming out in an ancient language he shouldn't know, but does anyway.

"You never left at all, did you?" he hisses, caring little about the people watching him talk to himself. "You just left a piece inside of me..."

He stares down at the ground, hating that person. Or maybe he hates himself? It's hard to tell the difference anymore.

But no. There's no lying about it this time. That person really is dead. He's not really hanging around. Perhaps a small part of him latched on. He still won't answer Ryou. He can't. Even if there is a small part still there, it's not enough to answer back. It's not even enough to listen.

It's even worse than when he was still there, in the teen's head.

He sighs and blinks, feeling suddenly tired.

"I miss you," he breathes out to the person who no longer can listen.

Another lie. But at least this one lets him feel like a good person. This lie makes him feel... like he's still Ryou... and not someone else. Because that someone else wouldn't have missed Ryou. He would have been happy he was gone.

And the only way he can not be that person... well, maybe pretending to miss him will be a good start to being decent again. It's better than giving in.

His fingers twitch again before he turns back around with a sigh. Maybe he'll be lucky, and that bottle will still be there to steal. Maybe he'll even go all the way and hit Yugi over the head with it once he's drunken the whole bottle.

He should really be a good person.

He WANTS to be a good person.

Dammit. He should really stop lying to himself. It's becoming a bad habit.


End file.
